I’m thankful that God is holy.
All non-biblical worldviews are founded on the idea that there is continuity between the physical and spiritual realms. What is true in the physical world is also true in the spiritual world and vice versa. The physical and spiritual worlds are locked in-step.
This way of thinking has a major impact on everyday life. Superstition and fatalism, for example, result from this kind of thinking. These two concepts alone will fundamentally determine how someone behaves in the world. If everything is left to fate, then I might as well do what I want. Fate, in other words, undermines human responsibility and free will. It tells us that what we do doesn’t matter. If superstition is real, then we should all be very afraid because it means that we are all subject to suffering and hardship that we simply cannot control. Once again, you might as well do what you want.
The greatest implication of this way of thinking is that things will never change. If things in the spiritual world are just like things in the physical world, then the gods are merely superhumans. They are subject to fate, death, betrayal, dishonesty, infidelity, murder, and the list goes on. If everything in reality is locked together, then there is no such thing as the sacred; there is no possibility for anyone or anything to be set a part, holy, different.
Reality as the Bible describes it is completely different. According to the Bible God is not part of the cosmos. God is outside of time and space. He is not subject to fate and death. He is holy. That is, He is truly set a part; and, it is precisely because He is set a part that there is hope for change. He can break into the cosmos and change things. He can do things that are brand new (Is. 43:18–19). Life doesn’t have to just keep going around and around! There is hope for real, actual change! History isn’t simply repeating itself endlessly. To the contrary, history is actually going somewhere precisely because God is not tied to it. God can actually break into the world and set things in another direction.
God is adamant throughout the Old Testament that Israel understand that He could not be contained by the creation; that no statue could encapsulate Him. He is not synonymous with any created thing. He cannot be summed up in an idol.
This Thanksgiving week, I’m thankful for the fact that God can change our circumstances; that he can break into our lives and set things on a different course. I’m thankful that life is not dictated by impersonal fate or destiny. I’m thankful that human choice matters. Most of all, I’m thankful that God is holy, set a part, different than this broken human world.
